I asked a question before about protecting children, and one of the questions was about smoking marijuana. Many people were in favor of people smoking weed being arrested.
So, here is a followup question: Say you have a friend, a good friend, and you and your friend are sitting around enjoying an adult beverage. Your friend pulls out a joint and lights it up. Do you reach for the phone and call the police immediately, because weed is illegal? What if the state where you lived had decriminalized possession of less than an ounce? Do you call the cops anyway and let them come out and weigh it?
Now let’s suppose that you are at a concert, outdoors in an ampitheater. You smell weed. Do you go report it and try to have the person arrested? What if you knew the person, and knew that the person was a single parent, and that being arrested would cause their child to be placed in foster care? Would you still want them arrested? Would it bother you if the child’s life were ruined by being horribly abused in the foster home, or would you just think “Too bad – it’s the parent’s fault for breaking the law”?
Are there laws that you do not feel a need to personally enforce?
What things do you think are wrong only because they are illegal? In other words, if a thing is made legal, is it now right instead of wrong? If a thing is banned, do you instantly change how you think of it – what was right is now wrong?
If you are the kind of person who defines right and wrong based strictly on the law, does it bother you at all that your opinions are completely controlled by a group of legislators who might be completely corrupt? And if soeciety were to collapse so that there was no longer any law, would you feel free to do absolutely anything, including murder? Why not?
If someone did that, I would probably ask him/her to share it with me.
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Uri
I don’t see it as my job to call the cops at every infringement of the law. I will only do so if I personally find the crime against my morals. This would include any theft/robbery, assault, rape, etc, so I would clearly report these.
On the other hand, I consider drug taking a victimless crime and will leave it for the cops to enforce if they want, it has nothing to do with me.
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No,
I believe certain laws are just money makers and not anything I feel inclined to do something about. Most often I mind my own business. If a child is being harmed, then I do not sit back even if its "legal" If it is abuse, I report it, same for adults I don t agree with murder, and I do not agree with harming others or abusing them. I do not agree with stealing either and I have reported crimes.
I have seen lawyers and judges and doctors, (I know them personally) break laws, and I do not agree, some there is no one to tell and others are not my business. One being prostitution, and the other is weed, now there are laws that people speed, etc. I don't agree with certain things people do, but its up to them to use their own brain and for me to mind my own business, if they are not harming or hurting others or doing so to have their fun.
I m a very moral person actually, and the most important thing for me is to sometimes ignore what I hear and see, and keep my mouth shut. I m responsible for me and people I care about, and protecting myself and my loved ones, and in that case I do as needed. I do not hang out with immoral people but not everyone is perfect! Murder, I would report, even if it were my own family.
I believe in helping people and protecting kids,no matter what kind of parents they have. Lets put it lilke this I do what is right because I have integrity, and do what god would expect, if there is a god, if not, I do what is right, because I have a conscience and do not tattle on others just to enforce my beliefs on them or because its the "law"
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you asked: “When you know that someone is doing something illegal, do you always call the cops?”
I say: it depends, is it a cop doing it (the illegal action)
think of all the lws in stalin’s russia, mao’s china. hitler’s germany – pol pot made it illegal to earn money or live in a city – go figure…
when laws are bad, good men go to jail.
when laws are dangerous then the populous must rise up to change them.
the clash had a great song on combat rock called “Know your rights” click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoNBkyMzDs8
lyrics:
you have the right not to be killed, murder is a crime unless it was done by a policeman or an aristocrat.
you have the right to food money providing of course you don’t mid a little investigation, humiliation, and if you cross your finger rehabilitation.
you have the right to free Speech, as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.
great song, makes me want to riot – but in the end i don’t agree 100%. but in UK i understand how they felt that way at the time.
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get off the streets!
I find that reporting victimless crimes is particularly reprehensible when there is an obvious bias by a government to limit freedoms in which no one need deliberately stick their nose or become involved in and for which there is a general acceptance of no great harm done. Examples: smoking weed in private, skinny dipping on a remote beach, multiple sex partners of any sex above the age of consent,etc.
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If someone did that, I would probably ask him/her to share it with me.
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If you do not stand up for freedom, and vigorously defend it at ALL turns then you will lose it. That is a saying that I firmly believe in.
All I can say is for those that believe that the law is correct because it’s “The Law”, I would like to remind you that the “Law” kept some of us on the back of the bus for a long time and wouldn’t even let us all drink from the same water fountain.
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